VFX
New VFX tools introduce powerful enhancements for creating realistic simulations, including improved Pyro FX recipes, MPM-based destruction tools and ML based surfacing tools for fluids.
PyroFX
Making PyroFX workflows easier to access in Houdini 21 is crucial because it allows VFX artists to set up complex fire, smoke, and explosion effects more quickly using production-ready presets and streamlined tools.
Recipes
The rebuilt pyro shelf tools provide VFX artists with production-ready presets and recipes such as explosions, fire, smoke, and debris which are designed for quick setup, pre-simulated previews, and fast rendering to accelerate shot creation.
Thruster
The thruster effect tool gives VFX artists a fully procedural, layer-based setup with complete artistic control, allowing them to create unique, customizable propulsion effects that render seamlessly and match previews accurately.
Work Efficiently
Machine learning and AI can make Pyro FX workflows more efficient by enabling upres and compression techniques that add allow artists to make creative adjustments and preview results faster.
ML Smoke
The ML-based pyro upres tool lets VFX artists add high-resolution detail to low-resolution simulations while preserving the exact same shape and motion.
ML Fire
Pyro FX upres lets VFX artists drastically speed up iterations by training a model once to upscale low-resolution simulations into detailed, high-resolution results.
Compression
The Zibra AI volume compression plugin enables VFX artists to reduce volumetric cache sizes by up to 99%, making simulations more storage-efficient and allowing VDB sequences to be used seamlessly in real-time engines like Unreal Engine 5.
Car Destruction
The new vehicle destruction tools let VFX artists easily set up realistic car, plane, or other vehicles to break-apart by automatically generating proxy geometry, constraints, and fracture setups, significantly streamlining the destruction workflow.
Neural Point Surface
The neural point surface tool uses Machine Learning to generate cleaner, sharper, and more detailed surface reconstructions from point data, offering VFX artists improved accuracy, temporal stability, and customizable models for a wide range of materials and effects.
MPM
There have been lots of significant enhancements to MPM in Houdini 21. SideFX has added a lot of features based on feedback from the community and this has resulted in four new nodes to streamline the post simulation workflow.
Surface Tension
The new MPM tools give VFX artists enhanced control over liquid simulations with features like surface tension, enabling realistic effects such as droplets, tendrils, and flowing water for product shots, motion graphics, and cinematic visuals.
Colliders
The enhanced MPM deforming collider improves accuracy and enables efficient upres workflows, allowing VFX artists to achieve visually detailed simulations equivalent to billions of points without requiring heavy, resource-intensive distributed simulations.
Post Fracture
The MPM Post Fracture and Deform Pieces nodes let VFX artists retarget simulation dynamics onto fully textured assets, automatically handling fracturing, UVs, and shading attributes to create highly detailed, production-ready renderings.
Surface
The MPM Surface node lets VFX artists convert particle simulations into clean meshes or signed distance fields while accurately transferring UVs and color attributes, ensuring detailed and stable texturing even in complex destruction effects.
Debris Source
The new MPM Debris Source node automatically detects breaking points in simulations and generates emission data for secondary debris, enabling VFX artists to add realistic, detailed debris layers to destruction effects.
Activation
The new auto switch mechanism optimizes simulations by deactivating static points, allowing VFX artists to achieve faster, more efficient simulations while maintaining high-quality results, such as realistic snow effects.
Continuous Emission
The continuous emission expansion feature lets VFX artists layer new material onto existing simulations, enabling realistic effects like pressure buildup and organic expansion, ideal for scenarios such as whipped cream or fluid growth.